On 28/08/05, Nikola Smolenski <smolensk(a)eunet.yu> wrote:
Maybe it would be possible to make a list of strings
which are expected to be
customised, and which are not. For example, "From Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia" will always be customised while "Article",
"Discussion",
"Edit", "Recent Changes"... will never be. Then, LanguageXx.php
could
periodically be refreshed with only "safe" strings filled in. Language files
for Navajo and other languages which only have translations in MediaWiki
namespace could be created from scratch in this way.
Nice idea, but I'm not sure such a distinction can really be made -
projects may have all sorts of reason for inserting particular jargon,
links, or just plain style in various parts of the interface, and it
seems a shame to deny them the right to do this. In fact,
MediaWiki:edit is a case in point - the English default is "edit", but
the English Wikipedia uses "edit this page", because lots of
descriptions elsewhere refer to "clicking the edit this page link".
I think a better idea would be to have a collaborative tool for
translations (be it wiki-style or anything else) which was able to
compare current default messages with custom messages from a
particular wiki, and allow users (who can understand the language in
question) to manually "merge" the changes which are appropriate for
the distributed default. Ideally, there should also be a way of
flagging which messages have been changed in the English "master"
version and/or a way of comparing with a "parent" language (so, for
instance, Catalan might be worth comparing against both Castillian
Spanish and English).
I haven't time right now to see if any existing tools could be adapted
for this purpose - tempting though a wiki-based system seems, a
permissive setup of an existing l10n tool might be more suitable.
--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]